March 2025
Although we loved our Patrol & Tvan (which we had owned for 13 years & 10 years respectively) & had called them both ‘home’ for 6 years, our bodies were not getting any younger & had been hankering after a few more ‘comforts’.
Specifically we wanted indoor cooking & seating/dining (with outdoor option too), and less set up – especially in wet & windy weather.
However finding the right vehicle was akin to looking for a needle in a haystack. Any RV is a compromise but we had determined that there were some things which we would not compromise on & those things narrowed the field to almost nothing. We decided that we would continue with the Patrol & Tvan until such time that we found something to suit. At times we were tempted to compromise more than we were comfortable with, but thankfully we remained resolute.
Long ago, indeed not long after buying the Patrol & Tvan & discovering ‘off road touring’, we knew that our next vehicle would be an ‘expedition truck’. We excluded any of the Japanese truck conversions, as we felt that whilst relatively capable if well converted they essentially (in our eyes) remained 4wd delivery trucks intended primarily for 4wd use on & off building sites etc, rather than our intended purpose …. touring. The main disadvantage we perceived was one of comfort – short leaf springs can be improved a little & suspension seats can be fitted, but at the end of the day it seemed (to us) that we would be asking too much of the design.
Other considerations discounted were the Iveco Daily 4×4, which on paper seemed the most obvious choice with many desirable features, but stories of unreliability scared us off. Simply not a vehicle we would feel comfortable about travelling alone in remote areas with. Not a user friendly vehicle to fix without a good working knowledge of modern computerised electronics. Mercedes Unimogs, are big – too big to comfortably fit on many Australian tracks. Most tracks are Land Cruiser width & ‘Mogs are quite a bit wider, meaning that tyres are often off the sides of the track creating a higher than acceptable (to us) risk of tyre damage.
Now, If I am to be honest, the seed for what we would purchase was actually sown more than two decades ago, when good friends took us for a drive across the Skytrek 4×4 circuit in the the Flinders ranges in their OKA based self built motor home. So an OKA was always going to be the strongest contender.
However it wasn’t quite that simple. Whilst OKA’s have a similar width to a Land Cruiser, & being built from the ground up for off road conditions, makes them relatively comfortable on rough terrain (as well as having legendary off road capability), our travelling requirements meant that almost all the OKA’s we saw come up for sale would require significant compromise to our preferred travelling style. With less than 500 OKA’s having been built since the early 1990’s, the numbers of them for sale at any given time are not huge & many are ‘long term rebuilding projects’ & by far most are either pop top camper conversions, or buses or utes still in their original configuration.
The major thing we loved about our Patrol & Tvan, in addition to it’s off road capability was that it had heaps of storage, & this single factor was was the single most important attribute for enabling us to remain ‘off grid’ for extended periods without need to re-supply. Commonly for 6 weeks at a time, occasionally 8 weeks. This attribute remained of prime importance for us in a new vehicle, & basically although we saw a number of very nice OKA poptops come onto the market, they simply did not have the amount storage we wanted.
We also wanted a ‘wide bodied’ OKA, standard OKA bodies are too narrow to allow east/west sleeping arrangements. Length-wise a maximum of 6 metres was for us essential. Any longer & it begins to impede more than we wanted on it’s off road ability & thus it’s ability to access places of interest. Again these things reduced our choices even further. Add in the desire for a Cummins motor (6 cylinder 6BT) & an Allison auto transmission & we were looking for a niche vehicle within a niche market. The obvious thing to do would be to purchase an unconverted OKA & build the motorhome ourselves. Sadly though I had to recognise that much as I would have liked to do this that physically I am no longer up to the demands of building another RV.
It looked like we might never find what we wanted until we heard of one around November ’22 at which point we became very excited – an OKA which ticked most of our boxes, albeit with a few compromises we felt we could live with. It didn’t have a walk through from cab to living accomodation, it’s engine was a Cummins, but a 4 cylinder one, it had a manual gearbox. 5.95 metres long & what we think is a very clever living space design, which whilst ‘compact’ does not feel too tight & claustrophobic. It’s height (3.2 metres) is a compromise & there will be times it will prevent us going where we want to go, which will be frustrating, but considering all the other boxes it ticked & the quality of the build, plus a number of non- essential but ‘nice to have’ features, we felt it was time to stop looking & buy. If we hadn’t have done so we think we could have continued looking for years & at our age that no longer seemed practical!
So…………We bought an OKA. 🙂
What follows is a fairly detailed description of the vehicle for those of you interested in such things. More photos follow.
It’s not a run of the mill OKA (if such a thing exists). It’s previous owners ordered it from the OKA company in Perth in 2003. This was a period of difficulties for the company & the truck was not delivered until 2006. It is the prototype NT Model. 432 OKAs had been made previously (XT & LT models). This was OKA NT01 & the 433rd OKA built in Perth. Since then only a handful were built until early 2024, when the OKA company, under new ownership, after acting as an OKA repair & rebuild business for a number of years finally obtained the necessary approvals to recommence building & selling new vehicles once again. These are now referred to as ‘NT new generation’ models, with a number of modern upgrades to comply with legislation and a more powerful Cummins motor.
Ours was the only NT model to be built with a manual gearbox, all later ones having the Allison auto transmission. We believe ours was also the only NT with 12 volt electrics, all subsequent ones being 24v .
The previous owners sold the truck through OKA in Perth, & had the company change the manual transmission to a new 6 speed Allison for us.
It was advertised as a ‘Global Expedition Vehicle’ which is precisely what it is, with a variety of features built in for that purpose, some we will never need as we are unlikely to take it outside of Australia. It has spent time in Africa, South America & Europe, as well as being used around Australia. Some of it’s features are ‘extras’ for use in high altitude & extreme cold. All windows are shuttered for protection against theft on sea crossings, & it’s travel appearance is deliberately ‘delivery vehicle – like’ in order not to draw attention in less safe parts of the world.
We bought it with 285,000kms on the clock.
The interior is what we like to think of as ‘utilitarian luxury’. It certainly doesn’t have the appearance of the fancy large motorhomes getting around, most of which would have cost similar or less.
The available space dictates that what many folk might consider ‘essential’ are missing. We have no built in toilet, just a small porta potti stored in a cupboard sized specifically for it. We do have a shower, but its use requires an internal shower curtain to be erected. The drain pan is set into the floor at the door entrance. We have chosen to leave home without the curtain after finding it ’too much bother’ to set up each time. We have extended the shower hose from it’s mixer tap to allow outdoor showering (with or without a small shower tent). For us the ‘utilitarian’ appearance suits our intended use & the lack of internal bathroom & toilet are a trade off with the vehicle’s size that we are happy to accept. There is no timber in the construction ….. nothing to be damaged by water.
Seating is comfortable & a seat & the table remains accessible when the bed is in sleeping mode. This we felt important for those times one remains up after the other has gone to bed. The previous owners were ‘entertainers’ so the table has an extension which incredibly enables seating for up to 5. I doubt we’ll use it.
Sleeping. A ‘permanent’ bed (one not needing making up) would have been nice, but with space constraints we have what we think is the next best thing. The bed in day mode, remains an accessible single bed, but can be changed to queen size double ’night mode’ very quickly. We can travel with the bed in night mode without problem if we use a small stool that we carry to act as a second seat. Given that most of our sitting is outside when weather allows, so far we haven’t generally bothered to put the bed away during the day. No awning to become a casualty on tight tracks, instead we have the height of the vehicle to provide shade for most of the day. We just move our chairs as needed.
We have no air conditioning & just a single electric fan which as yet we have felt no need to use. The reason is that the living quarters design has considered air flow well . With door & windows on one side of the truck, two large hatches in the roof & a large window on the other side of the truck we always seem to have enough breeze to not feel like we are in an oven. Even when conditions outside are hot & still the air rising to exit the roof hatches draws air in from the door & windows. As I write this our external temp is displayed at 40.3 deg.C & internal temp is 34.9 deg C …… & yet it doesn’t feel oppressive. We think the metal ‘security’ shutters above the open windows help to ensure that we don’t have ‘direct’ sunlight to endure inside. The living quarter’s walls, roof & floor are all aluminium honeycomb, lined with foam & fibreglass inside (to prevent cold paths/condensation) over 70mm thick & effective heat insulation. External apertures are well sealed. No dust enters when driving, another indicator of design quality.
Fuel is held in 2 tanks – 190 litres & 160 litres. This 350 litres, with the cruise control set to 85kph results in a highway fuel range of 1800 kms to 2000kms. At that speed fuel consumption is a tad under 18 litres per 100km, which we think pretty good for a large ‘brick’ shaped vehicle. Travel weight with everything full is 7000kg. GVM is 7300kg. (This is higher than most OKA’s). To compare, over 6 years our Patrol & Tvan (combined weight around 5000kg) averaged 15.5 to 16 litres per 100kms. For longer very remote tracks we have another 80 litre fuel capacity in 4 x 20 litre Jerry cans housed in a purpose built aluminium ‘box’ on the cab roof.
Water. Two stainless steel tanks hold 100 litres each. This 200 litres is a bit less than we had in the Patrol & Tvan (230 litres) but we think it is adequate. Not once did we ever have to move on because we were running out of water in the Patrol & Tvan, we were always able to source good water no matter how remote we were. The OKA has some added water bonuses compared to the Patrol & Tvan, which only had carbon silver filtering between tanks & taps. There are two sediment filters pre tank, & post tank there is a carbon silver filter, plus a UV steriliser if there are any doubts about the water quality. With two identical pumps water can be pumped from non reticulated sources , whilst having the redundancy should one fail. The system also allows for water of a lesser quality to be separated to one tank/pump, &good drinking water to be catrried in the other at the same time. Different switches in the kitchen enable either to be chosen depending upon use.
Heating – hot water.
Hot water tank is 20 litres. This can be heated by waste heat from the engine as we drive. Always have hot water on arrival at a camp. It can also be heated by the hydronic diesel heater during longer stays without the need to start the engine. A 3rd option is 240v water heating when it is available. The Diesel heater takes it’s fuel direct from the larger of the two main tanks. It has two pumps, either of which can be selected with a switc. One for high altitude (think Andes) & one ‘normal’. In effect this gives us redundancy in case one fails, as the high altitude one also works ok at low altitude.
Heating – Space heating.
This is definitely a ‘luxury’ for us. The heating is a combination of hot air & hydronic under floor heating. This can, like the hot water be used in conjunction with the waste heat from the vehicle’s engine, so if travelling in cold conditions we can drive and arrive at our destination with the living quarters already at the temperature we have pre-set. When not on the move the same can be achieved using the diesel heater. The warm floor on bare feet is wonderful, & unlike hot air only diesel heaters the issue of hot head/cold feet is avoided. The hot air comes from water to air blowers (like a car heater).
Power. In comparison to some of the latest systems being installed in RV’s our system is modest, but is a step forward to what we have been used to. At the time it was built (in 2015) it was high end state of the art. All Mastervolt equipment. 3000w Inverter Charger, 60amp solar regulator, 45 amp dc to dc charger, 350Ah LifePo4 battery & 700w rooftop solar. All components ‘talk’ to each other via a Canbus system. The battery was tested by the Australian Mastervolt distributors prior to our purchase & at 7 years old still retained 97% of it’s original capacity!
Cooking. The truck has 3 cooking options.
First is a built in diesel cooktop. We had heard various stories about this type of cooker, usually about their lack of instant availability & poor heat control, so we were a little unsure how we would find it. Pleasingly we like it. It does require switching on 5 minutes before we want to cook, but that doesn’t really seem to be a problem for us, & heat control can be managed quite well simply by moving the pots around. One end is cooler than the other. It fits two pots or pans. We get no smell from it unless the wind is in the wrong direction & we forget to close the window on the driver side as this the side where the exhaust exits.
Second is a single ‘burner’ induction cooktop which we have used both inside & outside.
Third is the Microwave/Convection/Grill oven. To date we haven’t used the microwave function but have baked some bread buns using the conventional convection function & surprisingly (to me) deemed it sustainable on our power system.
4×4 Capability. In addition to it’s good ground clearance & hi/lo ratio gears, it has both front & rear differential locking. We have also fitted a new Sherpa 25,000lb electric winch to the front & complimented this with all new lightweight recovery gear to suit the vehicle’s weight …… and of course hope we never need to use it!
Feel free to ask any questions if you have them.